Such working for free — not an uncom- mon thread in academia — differed in that there was no additional, recipro- cal benefit of Research Excellence Framework recognition or CV benefit. The language was that of a love for the purposes, the ethos of what we were build- ing.
The collective generated online writing retreats and networks between speakers that helped review material, offer suggestions and provide a range of technical and academic support. It was evident that some submissions needed more work and were embry- onic. Beginning with a network of support and a positive ethos of accepting every submission made a big difference. This open door did not lead to random and unfinished presentations.
The opposite happened, once we created a collective through those coming in we could create small groups, each with a chair. These little hives centred loosely around big ideas — of art, of experience or focus on a theme. The suggestion was to work together as groups of three www. Experienced presenters worked with first time presenters, community educators prepared with Russell Group peers, students with long-term lecturers, with the overarching ethos being one of creating an equal and supportive relationship.
Chairs allowed these groups to reach out to other groups, access expertise in technology such as film editing, and generate an interactive approach to mutual aid. Technology training was given to each group, and the result was a positive and skilful set of sessions. Confidence came through the opportunities to develop the presentations, run through ideas with peers and practice running to times that emphasized the impor- tance of giving each other their full session by not running over.
These are functional results that would benefit every conference and came not through tighter management of the event, but greater time given to collective prepa- ration. Through creating a period of mutual support, we could develop not only presentations and content, but cultivate feelings of involvement and increased confidence.
Beginning with love and positivity was crucial in allow- ing the ethos of the collective that supported such growth. Diversity of voice and experience came through removing barriers allowing new perspectives around what an appreciated, kinder approach to a conference presentation might be.
These groups were hives, of energy, of creativity, of support and of purpose. As the time of the conference grew nearer, we met weekly as a larger group, exchanging ideas and enjoying being around each other. The values of small groups are more than a method, a means of delivering a product. At the foun- dation of thinking, of practice, this model is one rooted in togetherness and support.
Although I had previously experienced loose networks and confer- ences in technology related areas, that had similar modelling, the difference here was the prioritizing of background and lives as a part of the process. What each individual presentation brought resulted in a change of the whole, helping realize in tangible practice what had been the initial ethos. Film was prevalent, powerful and used in multi- ple ways.
First time filmmakers forged new ways of expressing their ideas Duckett , with skills learned from across others in the collective. A silent animation film echoed in stomachs and souls across the hundreds of delegates Thompson The concept of a silent animation was chal- lenging, perhaps particularly in an online space with a wide and distributed audience. That we could include this and create an environment in which the artist felt able to present a personally revealing, moving and emotionally charged piece, was testimony to the success of the approaches taken.
Poetry gave further personalized character to the conference Wetton ; LaBerge ; Hall and shifted the ways we engaged with the speakers, and with each other. Poetry, film and animation offered powerful means for realizing visceral, animal responses of hurt and subse- quent courage in response. These alternate approaches to knowledge crea- tion and knowledge sharing showed us that evocative power works in various ways to dissolve borders, even those we find hard to identify.
The online nature of the event meant we had international speakers that revealed familiar feelings, though found in wildly different contexts. These too included poetry but also detailed academic research articles that were came with personal narratives and lives of the presenters Alexander ; Nisha ; Gabriel As Reay had reminded us, having a voice did not mean it would be heard. The conference had provided a space where we knew we could be heard; the innovation and diversity in presenta- tions demonstrated how these new voices could make that hearing powerful.
Following on from others Yosso ; Walley ; Reay ; Gibbons it was evident that the inclusion of lives, of personal experience was an inte- gral and crucial part of what made the conference powerful. Listening to each other was a political act, recognizing alternate visions of how academia was experienced allowed some dissolving of feelings of alienation and isolation. We felt this practised a different type of understanding, a new form of knowledge in an academic conference.
The form of presentations was not merely a creative exercise in difference. It was testimony to the necessity of alternatives, of expressive practice, of experi- mentation in speaking out, of finding new voice if we truly do seek to work with, and prioritize, our diversity. Worth repeating, it is here in practice that we must BE different if we cannot create new worlds by more vigorously polish- ing the old ones.
As we came together, we saw other familiar lives, some diverse and very different to our own but threaded with a simi- lar and shared experiences as we encountered, and were encountered by, the Academy.
Some of the most significant of these are presented here in the anticipation they can be built upon in future conferences and might persuade others of the benefits of such an intervention. Leading the conference with a clear concern on working class academ- ics allowed us to traverse borders between hierarchical models of the academic landscape and underrepresented communities.
This event was www. Despite the differences in contexts, finding that our experiences were familiar and across Russell Groups, post univer- sities, CBHE and beyond international borders was both sobering and revelatory. The ethos of By Us and For Us helped identify a working-class identity that was not about absolute commonality, but that highlighted the diversity of backgrounds, of race, gender, cultural, institutional, and geographical distance.
Solidarity came through seeing classism and elitism in diverse contexts and therefore helped generate a depth to our under- standing of the complexity of these issues. It was evident that we had differences between us and that solutions would also look different for each of us. Subsequent networks and collaborations between these differ- ent spaces highlight the potential for working class backgrounds to offer a unifying characteristic rather than one we must navigate as a perceived weakness.
The importance of creating a fair and equal representation for diverse working-class academics goes beyond academics ourselves. The Academy remains a core space for generating knowledge and this must be informed by thinkers, artists, creatives across all areas of knowing that include work- ing class backgrounds.
Many descriptions and experiences were about the isolation as we travelled into a world unknown to the one we had to leave. The deeper we moved in the Academy, the more we had to leave our own communities. This distancing, this replacing of warmth that turned cold, this alienation was often felt both in academic spaces and later when returning to our home communities. Our establishment of an opening up of academic practice and influence remains crucial. The evidence of the presentations and the delegates feedback proved the need to be open to voices across society, enriching and correcting narrow class dominance.
Fear of being outed impacts not only the individuals themselves, but also creates a knowledge vacuum that excludes most forms of knowing and prioritizes a class-based elite interpretation of life. To redress this, our working-class communities require an equal representation and one that can speak for itself, rather than be continually viewed from afar. It was evident across speakers and collectively across the conference, the blogs, and the conversations we have had that many people feel excluded and irrelevant; if not irrelevant now, then a deeper irrelevance that oblit- erated where they had come from, what they had learned in Othered spaces.
What previously had been experienced as irrelevant was not only ourselves, but our entire histories. Speakers highlighted the necessity for diverse histories to be included as knowledge to form theory and shape practice more meaningfully. What we saw was not deficit communities seeking access to knowledge, this was a demand for other histories to be included. If we continue to allow only the assimilated to engage, to first abandon their backgrounds, then only those narrowed elements of our own lives, those deemed admissible, remain.
The past represented in academia was not written by working class people and therefore the books, galleries and theories created obscure us as powerful agents of change and action. We become all too easily the monsters of a middle-class history and only by writing ourselves into history can we correct this fallacy. Writers such as Diane Reay, Valerie Walkerdine, Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, inter- national writers such as Antonia Darder all highlight the importance of recognising and including class as a crucial consideration.
We can build on this by recognising them as advocates for change and promoting them in all areas of knowledge creation. This moves beyond categorization of our work as working-class studies as an exotic and marginal space. It will mean establishing courses that seek and include those histories less evident in academic libraries and include class in the necessary work around decolo- nizing the curriculum.
New types of knowledge, new ways of seeing academia will come with a wider working-class engagement. This is not only a mark of a fair society, but it is also essential to generate knowledge fit for coming worlds. The pandemic has highlighted in every society how the working class are the keystones, the millions of tiny engines, that support and uphold society.
In a world stripped bare to satisfy demand, we need new thinking and ways of organizing that do not rely on impossible and insane continual growth, extraction, and individualism. By operating to a working class as equals logic, we need to incorporate local and Indigenous knowledges, spaces of crea- tion that are rooted in making a community work, not attaining distancing achievements, and dislocated and elite models of being.
This will necessi- tate interdisciplinary approaches to how we organize work and have social justice and equality as primary concerns of the Academy and its purposes. We need a better, stronger, and more purposeful Academy that moves beyond half-hearted concepts such as social mobility that justify inequality by selecting out a few ripe berries while allowing the plant to wither.
The conference demonstrated the existence of strong thinkers, creators, educa- tors, and researchers across a diverse and vibrant working class. We need to continue this work to solve the global issues of poverty, hunger, climate change and multiple challenges to the survival of the planet itself. How can we live the machinery that chokes us with fumes of dismissiveness while promising us light somewhere ahead in the fog?
But it is not anti, it is a more vigorous and determined action of making institu- tions MORE than they are, not less. More significant because they represent, more fluid because they understand and engage — not as distant singular class observation posts. More because they link with their communities, become the spaces in society that link tiny engines and alter collective visions of who we are. We must recognize those many academic institutions that are part of a rethinking of what we might do and promote that work, celebrate diverse voices, and encourage its continuation.
Rather than isolated and underfunded spaces, those universities and colleges of innovation should be promoted as models for what our wider education system needs to be. Organizations such as the Alliance of Working Class Academics should become integral features of the Academy, informing policy and executive decisions on what our institutions look like, what they do, and who they involve. The conference proved that we could build a can-do and must-do collective that has a lower- ing of ego, a raising of solidarity and togetherness, a replacement of cultures www.
This was self-funded and generated through a necessity to be heard. We can begin to imagine what is possible if respect for working class communities became properly embedded in the purpose and practice of the entire Academy. We have not solved a problem and there is no suggestion this conference has transformed how class is viewed in the wider Academy. Speakers highlighted that without working class, margin- alized, Indigenous, local and contextualized voices, the Academy is seriously weakened.
We should not be shocked to discover that one of the primary avenues through which God directs us is the counsel of others. A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. Where there is no guidance the people fall, But in abundance of counselors there is victory. Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. His writings are full of solid, straightforward advice like this. Wise people listen to counsel.
Wise people live and experience the fullness of life. Wise people accept the fact that they need help to make it to the right destination. According to Solomon, we will never get to the place where we are so brilliant, so experienced, so wise that we no longer need input from other people. According to Solomon, the wise person is always listening. Always ready to heed the counsel of someone wiser than himself. In what areas of your life do you need to stop and ask for directions? What parts of your life could use some help from someone wiser than you?
I know mine. I just hope and pray that I stay wise enough to know that I need help and continue to seek counsel from others. Because success breeds pride. At least, it can. It is next to impossible to hear the voice of God if we are not really listening to begin with. The best counsel in the world is wasted counsel if our minds are already made up. When we refuse to heed the counsel of others and make poor decisions, those decisions affect the people around us. Every decision we make that hurts us also hurts the people who love us most.
If you lack the wisdom that realizes the nature of things, Although you might grow accustomed to renunciation and bodhicitta, You will be incapable of cutting through conditioned existence at its root. Exert yourself, therefore, in the methods for realizing interdependence. Yet when they arise at once, not each in turn but both together, Then through merely seeing unfailing dependent origination Certainty is born, and all modes of misapprehension fall apart— That is when discernment of the view has reached perfection.
When you know that appearances dispel the extreme of existence, While the extreme of nothingness is eliminated by emptiness, [3] And you also come to know how emptiness arises as cause and effect, Then you will be immune to any view entailing clinging to extremes. When, in this way, you have correctly understood The key points of the three principal aspects of the path, Withdraw to solitude, dear son, strengthen your diligence, And swiftly accomplish the ultimate and lasting aim.
Translated by Adam Pearcey ,
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